European United Left/Nordic Green Left European Parliamentary Group

Time

Credit: Lucas

In light of last week's 'luxleaks' scandal which highlighted new European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's involvement in widespread aggressive tax evasion while he was Finance Minister of Luxembourg, GUE/NGL MEPs are gathering signatures for a motion of censure for his Commission.

The Group is looking for as broad support as possible from other political groups to help reach the total of 76 MEPs needed to pass the motion. However, GUE/NGL MEPs will not be accepting signatures from extreme right-wing MEPs that wish to sign.

GUE/NGL President Gabi Zimmer said: "This motion of censure is about holding Juncker to promises he has previously made: in his guidelines for the new Commission he stated that efforts should be stepped up to combat tax evasion and tax fraud, and little under a few months ago he said he would try to put some ethics and morality back into the European tax landscape.

"This issue is not just about Juncker. The behaviour of the Luxembourg government is an expression of what the internal market is really about: competition between the member states for the richest corporations at the expense of the majority of EU citizens. This is a result of excessive deregulation and non-control of capital flows - core components of the Lisbon treaty. We must move away from these policies immediately. The 'luxleaks' scandal is just one very clear example of EU governments' acceptance of 'legal' tax evasion and fraud."

GUE/NGL Vice-President Malin Björk said: "The scale of tax evasion in Luxembourg under Juncker's leadership is shocking. Now is not the time to wait and see, but a time for action. To not act now would be the same as giving Juncker and all the companies using Luxembourg as a tax haven a free pass to continue these aggressive tax evasion policies."